Amanda Scott (29 page)

He sensed her resistance, for his hand stilled and his arm lay quiet for the rest of their short journey. When they reached Barrington House, he opened the carriage door before the lackey could do so, and kicked the step down, barely touching it when he got out and turned to assist her. Inside the house, she said, “I must go up and change, sir. My headdress is making my head ache, and this hoop is too cumbersome to wear a moment longer than necessary.”

“Shall I play tirewoman?” he asked, his gaze intent.

“After the fuss you made about the cost of this gown, I should say not. I’d never hear the end of it if it got torn by my so-called ‘tirewoman.’ You’d conveniently forget that you were the one who had done the damage.”

“You must think me very clumsy,” he said. The intensity in his eyes increased.

She smiled quickly, lowering her lashes, and said, “Really, sir, it is nearly time for dinner, and I am famished. You may enjoy standing about for hours making idle conversation, but I am quite exhausted and will be no fit companion until after I have got out of this gown and been properly fed. Perhaps … perhaps later …” She looked up then, right into his eyes, and slowly, invitingly, ran her tongue over her bottom lip.

The intense expression eased, and he said, “I’ll expect you to keep that promise, sweetheart. Run away to change your gown, and I’ll order dinner moved ahead a bit. My parents are dining at the palace, and we needn’t wait to accommodate Oliver, for I doubt that he means to burden us with his presence tonight.”

Moving dinner ahead was not at all what she had wanted him to do, but she was determined this time to honor the vow she had made to herself. He was her husband, and Charley had been right to say she had been behaving badly. She smiled again, and when he bent to kiss her, she met him halfway.

As a result, Nicholas put his arms around her and pulled her close, his kiss deepening with a promise of delights to come. Responding was not difficult, and for a glorious moment, passion ruled instinct and she submitted willingly, experiencing a sharp surge of disappointment when he released her.

He stood for a moment, looking down into her eyes again, before he turned her around toward the stairway and gave her a pat on the backside. “Hurry, sweetheart, or you’ll not get any dinner.”

Her laughter came easily, and warm thoughts engendered by the exchange remained with her while she changed her gown. She began to think her resolution would not be hard to honor, after all. She looked forward to dinner, to seeing the warmth rekindle in his eyes, even to feeling his hands on her body again.

At the table, he was in an exceptionally good mood, and she found herself responding to it. She twinkled and laughed with him, flirting and responding enthusiastically to every conversational gambit. Not since their wedding night had she felt so easy and comfortable with him. She decided that Charley’s plain speaking had been good for her.

When she stood, intending to let him enjoy his port in solitude, he unnerved her a bit when he said to the butler, “Nothing more, Preston. I’m going upstairs with her ladyship. We mean to make it an early night.”

“It’s not even seven o’clock,” she murmured when he urged her toward the stairs. “The servants will think you ill if you take to your bed at such an hour.”

“Let them think what they like.”

“But you cannot want to go to bed so early. Would you not rather play piquet until it’s time for the tea tray to be brought in? We can use your cards if you like,” she added with a demure smile, twinkling at him from under her lashes.

“I don’t want to play cards, and I don’t want to drink tea. I want to enjoy some time with my wife.”

“But—”

“Are you changing your mind again, sweetheart?”

“No! No, of course not. It’s just … Well, it just seemed rather unbecoming for us to be in such a hurry.”

“I thought all you needed was enough sustenance to regain your strength.”

An edge had entered his voice, and she said hastily, “You must think my brain quite addled, sir. Y-you are quite right. Let us go up at once.”

Upstairs when he would have drawn her directly into his bedchamber, she demurred, but she had collected her wits enough to say with a chuckle, “I think we would both do better to prepare properly for the night, in our usual fashion.”

“Melissa …”

“No, no, don’t scold me for using good sense, sir, unless,” she added archly, “you mean to ring for Lisset and warn him that we are in your bedchamber and that he should not come in. He generally does, you know, to assure himself that all is in order for you. Indeed, I’d not be surprised to find him there now, expecting you to refresh yourself before going out to Brooks’s or to the Billingsgate Club.”

Seeing acknowledgment that she was right dawn in his eyes, she breathed a sigh of relief.

He said, “Go then, and let Lucy do whatever she must do for you, but I warn you, I’ll not be patient longer than it takes me to get rid of Lisset.”

“I’ll hurry.”

“See that you do.”

Hastening to her bedchamber, she rang for Lucy, busying herself with various unimportant tasks while she waited, one moment anticipating what lay ahead, the next, trying to keep her mind off it. When Lucy entered, Melissa asked her to light the fire. She gave other orders in her usual manner, but with each passing minute her tension increased. Knowing she was succumbing to nerves, she exerted herself to relax, and before Lucy had finished brushing out her hair, she had succeeded in convincing herself that she was completely calm again.

That illusion lasted only until the connecting door opened. When she turned to face him, she could feel her heart thumping like a hammer in her chest.

Nicholas wore his elaborate dressing gown, tied firmly at the waist with its twisted cord sash. Hearing Lucy’s indrawn breath at the sight of him, she smiled and said lightly, “I am not quite ready to bid you good-night yet, sir.”

“You look ready to me. Good night, Lucy.”

“Good night, my lord,” Lucy said, dropping a hasty curtsy and leaving the room without another glance at Melissa.

Vexed, Melissa said, “I wish she had at least awaited a proper dismissal.”

“I dismissed her,” he pointed out, adding as he moved toward her, “Moreover, like any good servant, the wench knows when she’s not wanted. These candles and the firelight make your hair gleam like silver gilt, sweetheart.”

She stood, vividly aware of the thinness of her lawn nightdress beneath the soft lamb’s wool shawl Lucy had wrapped round her shoulders when she had sat down to have her hair brushed.

He moved nearer, the lust in his eyes as unmistakable to her as the much more physical evidence she could see for herself distending the folds of his robe.

Moistening suddenly dry lips, Melissa said, “Do you want to stay here or shall we go to your room?”

“We can stay here,” he said. “Why delay our pleasure merely to go elsewhere?”

“The fire is a trifle too warm, I think.”

“Then take off your shawl,” he said, reaching for her.

Stepping back, trying to make the move seem natural rather than evasive, she slipped off the shawl and turned to fold it, intending to place it on the dressing stool.

Reaching over her shoulder, Nicholas took it away, and tossed it over the stool. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and bent nearer to murmur into her ear, “Still shy, sweet-heart?”

“Oh, no, not anymore.”

His silence disturbed her.

Looking into his eyes, she saw skepticism, and added ruefully, “A little nervous, perhaps.”

“Do I frighten you?”

“N-no, sir.” He didn’t. What she feared was not him but herself.

Gently he turned her and drew her toward him, slowly lowering his head to kiss her. The kiss was weightless, a mere brushing of his lips against hers, but Melissa felt its effect all the way to her toes and fingertips. Nerves stirred uneasily, but desire overpowered them, leaping like tinder to a flame. Telling herself again that he was her husband and could not be denied, she placed her hands at his waist and pressed her lips hard against his, determined to let lust rule the night.

His mouth softened, opened slightly, and when his tongue touched her lips, teasing her, challenging her to play, she responded at once, feeling the flames rise in her body. Reminded of the explosive emotions he had awakened on their wedding night, she thought this must be the way marriage was meant to be.

“Loosen my robe,” Nicholas murmured. “Touch me.”

Obeying without thinking about anything beyond her growing desire for him and her hope that he would not stop kissing her, Melissa opened his robe and moved her hands across his hard stomach and around his sides to the small of his back.

His arms slipped around her, and he pulled her closer, kissing her with more authority. Again, she responded, hardly noticing when his right hand slipped between their bodies and moved to the lacing at the front of her bodice.

Her attention was riveted to his kisses, to his tongue plunging into her mouth, teasing hers, exploring the soft interior. Boldly, she dared to do the same to him.

When his right hand touched the bare skin of her breast, she started, but he held her, kissing her more passionately, the hand at her back sliding up to caress her neck beneath her hair, then to cup her head.

Fingers at her breast teased its nipple, and she moaned softly. He straightened, smiling, and said, “Your gown is in my way, sweetheart.”

The breath caught in her throat when he eased the gown from her shoulders, but in less than the time it took to begin breathing again, the soft lawn slipped from her body to the floor.

Nicholas reached for her, murmuring, “My robe comes off too, sweetheart, just as easily. And this time, when you caress me, move your hands lower. I would have you caress me, even kiss me, where my desire for you is plainest.”

Stiffening, Melissa found all sensible thought suspended. He seemed too large, too domineering, almost as if he had changed before her eyes to someone far more threatening. She stood motionless, aware of an odd buzzing in her ears, a sense of separation, followed by the strange sensation of watching herself from a distance and a vague awareness that there were things in her past that even Charley did not know.

Only when Nicholas shook her did she realize he was speaking to her. “Answer me,” he said sharply. “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing.”

“Then why didn’t you answer me? I spoke to you several times.”

“I-I didn’t hear you.”

“Nonsense, Melissa, you are standing right here in front of me. You must have heard me. I want to know why the devil you’re playing the tease again. You pretend to want my attentions, then reject them when they are offered. That is not how this game is honestly played, madam.”

“This is not a game!”

“You make it one,” he said flatly, “and you cheat.”

“I don’t!”

“You do. When one plays by one’s own rules, that’s cheating, plain enough. I have certain expectations as your husband, my dear, just as I would expect certain things of my partner in a game of whist. It is not acceptable in either case to begin play when you have no intention of finishing the hand.”

“Everything in this world is not comparable to a game, Nicholas.
People
are not cards to play one against another.”

“No, of course not,” he said, “but don’t pretend not to understand the elements of this game, because I saw you with Yarborne at St. James’s, and I saw the way he looked at you. If you are thinking of complicating my hand by continuing to flirt with that fellow, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. I am not a man you can safely cuckold.”

Shocked to learn he would think such a thing but well aware that she dared not explain the real meaning of what he had seen, she said quickly, “It is not what you think. Yarborne is naught to me but a nuisance, like a fly. And I can manage him, so you need not look murderous when I call him a nuisance. If I am polite to him, it’s only because I’m afraid that if I am not, he might tell others about what transpired in Newmarket. You said that no one would dare speak after you had warned them not to, and I know Great-Aunt Ophelia agrees that I needn’t worry now that I am married to you, but do you really exert such a powerful influence over Yarborne?”

He grimaced, and she saw that she had made a point. He said, “So that’s it. Well, you are right in that I don’t know him well enough to speak for him, or to be certain that my reputation will keep him silent. I daresay he believes his age would protect him from me. On the other hand, he is said to care deeply about his reputation, and those events don’t redound to his credit. Has he threatened to speak of that night?”

“No,” she admitted, “and perhaps I am foolish to worry. You are my husband, after all, and far more important to me, so if it distresses you to see me speak to him, I won’t. I truly don’t mean to tease you, sir, in any way. That is why I talked to Charley today. She agrees that I tease you, and says I have not been fair to you.”

“Do you mean to say you spoke of such private matters with your cousin?”

“I did. I daresay I ought to apologize, but I won’t. She told me to my face that I’ve been unfair, and when I’d thought about it, I knew that she was right. The trouble is, I don’t know how to mend matters.” Tears clouded her vision, and her throat tightened. “I don’t mean to tease you, Nicholas. It just happens. Even when I think all is going well, and I’m stirred to … to ecstasy by your touch and your kisses, something happens to spoil it. I can’t explain. I just know that when it happens, I feel as if I were another person, standing apart, watching us. That’s what occurred just now. Truly, I didn’t hear one word you said before you shook me. You must think I’m demented!”

His expression softened and his hands were gentle when he touched her shoulders again and drew her into his arms. “You are quite sane,” he said. “That sensation of standing apart sounds unusual, I admit, but presumably it arises from no more than a crisis of nerves. In Newmarket, I wondered how you could expect me to believe you didn’t recall that damned auction. Did the same thing happen then?”

She nodded.